Legerme Georgio, Yang Evan, Esquivel Rianne N, Kiljunen Saija, Savilahti Harri, Pohlschroder Mechthild
Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia 19104, PA, USA.
Division of Genetics and Physiology, Department of Biology, University of Turku, Turku 20500, Finland.
Life (Basel). 2016 Nov 26;6(4):41. doi: 10.3390/life6040041.
Archaea, like bacteria, use type IV pili to facilitate surface adhesion. Moreover, archaeal flagella-structures required for motility-share a common ancestry with type IV pili. While the characterization of archaeal homologs of bacterial type IV pilus biosynthesis components has revealed important aspects of flagellum and pilus biosynthesis and the mechanisms regulating motility and adhesion in archaea, many questions remain. Therefore, we screened a transposon insertion library for motility mutants using motility plates and adhesion mutants, using an adapted air-liquid interface assay. Here, we identify 20 genes, previously unknown to affect motility or adhesion. These genes include potential novel regulatory genes that will help to unravel the mechanisms underpinning these processes. Both screens also identified distinct insertions within the genomic region lying between two chemotaxis genes, suggesting that chemotaxis not only plays a role in archaeal motility, but also in adhesion. Studying these genes, as well as hypothetical genes and -also critical for both motility and adhesion-will likely elucidate how these two systems interact. Furthermore, this study underscores the usefulness of the transposon library to screen other archaeal cellular processes for specific phenotypic defects.
古生菌与细菌一样，利用IV型菌毛促进表面黏附。此外，古生菌鞭毛（运动所必需的结构）与IV型菌毛有着共同的起源。虽然对细菌IV型菌毛生物合成成分的古生菌同源物的表征揭示了鞭毛和菌毛生物合成的重要方面以及古生菌中调节运动性和黏附的机制，但仍有许多问题存在。因此，我们使用运动平板筛选转座子插入文库以寻找运动突变体，并使用改良的气液界面测定法筛选黏附突变体。在此，我们鉴定出20个以前未知会影响运动性或黏附的基因。这些基因包括潜在的新型调控基因，它们将有助于揭示这些过程背后的机制。这两种筛选方法还在两个趋化性基因之间的基因组区域内鉴定出不同的插入，表明趋化性不仅在古生菌运动中起作用，而且在黏附中也起作用。研究这些基因以及对运动性和黏附都至关重要的假设基因，可能会阐明这两个系统是如何相互作用的。此外，这项研究强调了转座子文库在筛选其他古生菌细胞过程中的特定表型缺陷方面的有用性。
